Of course, it is well known that a service, such as natural gas service and water service, provided by a local utility can and does include shut-offs to control the flow of the product to the consumer. Whether the consumer is a residential consumer, a business consumer, an industrial consumer or any other consumer, the local utility must be able to control who is receiving their product. Further, due to natural disasters and other events, the utilities must be able to control the flow of product to prevent unwanted adverse impact to the environment, and/or dangers to the public and/or property. As a result, the service lines include shut-offs to direct flow and to prevent unwanted flow of product. As can be appreciated, multiple shut-offs are needed so that a problem at a particular location does not necessitate a large scale service outage to stop the unwanted flow to the location. As can also be appreciated, increasing the number of shut-offs can adversely increase the amount of labor and the time necessary to stop the unwanted flow of product.
As a result of the above, there is a need for a system that maintains the flexibility of utilizing a large number of shut-offs while minimizing the labor necessary to maintain the high number of shut-offs and the amount of time necessary to reach and manually actuate the shut-offs which can be critical during a natural disaster. Accordingly, it has been found that remotely controlled systems can be used to minimize the labor necessary to maintain a large number of shut-offs by, at least, preventing the utility worker from having to enter a residence or business to stop the flow of product and to monitor the flow of product for billing reasons.
Other systems are available to remotely shut-off a service such as natural gas. Dunstan, Neupert, Perrin, and International publication WO 01/39222A2 show gas and other utility systems utilizing shut-off valves. However, these systems all utilize complicated systems which require removal and replacement of existing flow structures including the existing meter stop and even modification of the existing gas line. This requires service to be interrupted and requires a specialist for installation. Furthermore, once the systems are installed, the entire metering system must be thoroughly inspected for gas leaks. The introduction of, and installation can also require additional installation of piping or tubing to make the system function. Installation of these systems can also cause the existing pipe/tubing to be bumped and or dented which will cause damage to the system and system functions. Even after these systems are installed, they utilize complicated mechanical structures. In this respect, one system requires compressed air or pressurized liquid to actuate the shut-off. The pressure holds the system open and loss of pressure is used to turn the system off. As a result, these systems can be costly, they can also be costly to install and maintain. Further, they can present a liability and necessitate installation only by a certified professional.
For the systems which utilize hydraulics or pneumatics, secure installation of hydraulics/pneumatics require that system's tubing be encase in a tamper proof type casing, exacerbating an already time consuming process of installation. Unauthorized individuals could wreak havoc on this type of system with little difficulty.